Hey guys. I had a track on here once before but when I moved, we didn't have room to keep it so I had to sell it. I've now commandeered a room in the new place and am starting to set-up shop.

The track is limited to 1800 (1.8m) x 3000 (3m) and the table frames are already completed. I have the table tops ready to be fixed on but I need to route the table first. That means I need a track plan. I've tried a few designs and I've settled on this one as my favourite for now:

I've learnt quite a bit from my last routing job and, realistically, we only had two people at a time over to race (3 was a little cramped in the old room) so I'm going for two lanes this time. I didn't want any crossovers but I want to keep the track lengths the same approx. difficulty. Currently the lane lengths are off by half a metre. I'm after a combination of fast straights with intricate corners. I've tried to make it as realistic (compared to a real race track) as possible.

If anyone has any opinions or alternatives, PLEASE speak up as I'd like some input on the design. Everyone around here at my place just says "yeah, that looks fine"...

I'm assuming the purple area is the driver stations. I would probably seen about smoothing out the upper right hand corner and make the lastpart of the track a smooth flowing turn. Just my humble opinion and take it for what it's worth.

"Experience is what you get just after you needed it." - Stephen Wright

The purple area is just there because of the Slotman program. The actual drivers stations will be at multiple points around the table (to help with marshalling). I'll have to see what I can do with the top right corner. Good idea to smooth it out a little though.

you can't actually make the lanes the same length without a "crossover" IF you run them as 2 parallel lines.
If you mess about with the curves so that the 2 lanes spread and come back together you can make them the same length, but to be honest, the length of the lanes isn't the only factor in deciding relative lap times. With a 2 lane track, you can often end up with the outside (longer) lane as being faster, simply becuase it has more flowing turns, so you go through them a bit quicker, and carry more speed from straight to straight.

There is no asbolute formula on this, so to some extent you have to "pay your money and take your chances" on how lap times work out, just using common sense.

Looks like not a bad layout, I agree with what the other guys have already said, in my experience flyovers can really make or break a track. Unless you totally hate them i'd be including a donut style flyover for sure, they make a section more flowy & this would also even out the lengths. A flyover on that top right corner would go okay i reckon.

I know u said u wanted a more stop start track like real race tracks but imo flowy tracks are better to drive on becasue the only similarity between slot car racing & real race tracks is the fact that they both run cars, thats about it.... The worst tracks i have driven on were direct copies of actual race tracks layouts.

Other than that your layout looks not too bad, left turns followed by rights etc

Yeah, I realise the track lengths won't match up and that's fine because I plan on making some corners squeeze and stretch in the hope to make it equally challenging on each lane.

The flyover idea I don't quite understand. You say to make the top right corner a flyover but I'm trying to understand how. Also, I'm trying to avoid a flyover or bridge because I've had enough trouble just building the frame let alone somehow working over elevations.

Edit: Here is a new revision of the track:

The new design incorporates a flyover and adds some length to the track. It also evens up lane lengths a little more that before.

I laid out the new track plan on the boards last night. Didn't fit exactly like the picture but it was pretty close. It's much more complex than my last routed track and I love it.

Lane spacing is 100mm with a 120mm border around most of the corners. I stuck to a simple set of curve radii to make routing easier (120mm, 220mm, 250mm, 350mm & 450mm). There are 2 squeeze sections on the two inner hairpins. The outside of the track is quite flowing and the S/F is on the top right straight.

I cleaned out the room to put the track into and then built the frames.

There is just enough walking space around the table when the tops are in place. 4 pieces of 9mm MDF make up the table top.

I went up to Red Racer last night and bought my first car so I could check the layout of the track plan. I love Porsche so, fittingly:

I have a more complete track progress on my blog but I will keep this up-to-date as I go. The original images in the posts above have been deleted from my server which is why they're not there.

Hey Phil. I checked for marshalling before and, although there are some parts that are hard to reach, the direction of travel of the cars will generally keep them away from the centre of the table (unless you do something stupid). I also have a handy padding reaching arm for those tricky spots.

A couple of the corners have changed a little and that track plan above isn't set to scale or anything so it won't be as bad as it seems. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I double checked all the spots last night with the Porsche and, after modifying some corners a little, everything seems accessible now. I will be installing track call buttons just in case though.

I got the router from Dad today and tested on some scrap tonight. My trammel guide for the corner radius' works perfectly but it seems we may have to large a collect for the 4mm router bit as the bit appears to come loose very quickly (quite dangerous). Heading over to dad's tomorrow morning to check it out properly.

In other news, the lap counting computer is on hold because when I went to put together my old computer last night I noticed a capacitor on the motherboard has blown. Damn. I need to source either a cheap second hand computer or cheap motherboard that goes with the CPU. I only just threw 3 old computers out because we didn't need them a couple of months ago!

Just checked my bits and they're 1/4in so that's not the issue. It must be the collet not being tightened enough. I'm going to try it again in the morning. I measured up the lanes tonight and the outside lane is 17.2m and the inside is 16.75 so it's only a 40cm odd difference between lanes. The corners on the outside lane should make up for that difference.

Got most of the routing done today and will post pics up tomorrow. What I want to ask though is which power supply should I be looking at? As you know, it's a 2 lane track with 17m in each lane. I would like to run some high powered cars someday and will be running 1/24 scale as well.

Dont be afraid of elevations, it adds a lot of interest to the track and to me, realism. If I had do overs, I would have more elevation change, just for the looks of it and the interest it can add when it comes to doing scenery.

On your radii, why do them constant radius at all ? I used the flexible strip method, which allows a flared entry exit, very accurate and flowing, looks better too.

As for the power supplies, that 0-30V 5 Amp unit would probably be about right. I assume it's a linear regulated supply.

A switch mode supply, I would be a little concerned, depending on the design, a switcher is best suited to applications of constant load. You could always add a constant load with lighting or whatever. I see no real gain in having a switch mode regulator. If it's a supply you have on hand, thats another thing.

Even the most basic of regulated power supplies is such a huge gain over the wall warts, probably any of them are overkill, but "little do good, more do better".

Hey Johnnyfly41. I may add elevations once I get the track running. Simple "cut and raise" method would probably work fine. I didn't have anything on hand that would work as a flexible strip so I just made a simple trammel to do the corners. The straights on the other hand are giving me a LOT of grief. Even though I line up the router at both ends, my straight lines still don't match up. Very annoying. I guess a bit of sanding is in order.

Don't know anything about the difference between switch mode power supplies.